On Thursday, Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt that “regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey”. I was going to fire Comey.

“I have nothing to do- this was set up by the Democrats”, Trump said.

“The timing of director Comey’s dismissal to me and many committee members on both sides of the aisle is especially troubling”, Warner said. He’s highly respected. Very good guy, very smart guy.

Comey, the most high-profile FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover, was repeatedly criticized by the left and the right previous year for his handling of his bureau’s investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Mr McCabe said it was not typical practice to tell a person they were not a target of an investigation.

Trump’s comments seemed to refer to a period shortly before the election when law enforcement officials described growing internal dissent within the FBI, principally over Comey’s handling of Clinton-related investigations, and his public comments about the case.

“Regardless of what happens in the justice department and the FBI. the investigation that is being done by the intelligence committee will continue on its current course as aggressively as we are able to”, the Republican senator said.

Leaders of the U.S. intelligence agencies, including Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA chief Mike Pompeo, testifying on Thursday said they agreed with that finding. His work as US attorney for Maryland in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations gave Democrats comfort that he could stand up to Trump.

Asked if Comey had lost the confidence of rank-and-file employees at the bureau, as a White House spokeswoman had asserted a day earlier, McCabe said: “No, sir, that is not accurate”.

Flynn was dismissed in February amid media reports that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Among Republicans, 63 percent backed Trump’s decision while two-thirds of Democrats said the firing was inappropriate.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to publicly confirm whether or not it is probing Trump. The Democrats like him.

Since the election, Comey has publicly confirmed that there was an ongoing FBI investigation into Trump associates and collusion with Russian Federation, and he disputed under oath the president’s baseless claim that President Barack Obama ordered his team to be wiretapped.

“They want to come out, they want to talk about all of these – they love Comey and how great he was”, deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during Thursday’s White House press briefing.

Sanders said Comey’s inability to hunt down the source of leaks in the executive branch was “one of the many factors” that led to his ouster.

McCabe took issue with reports that Comey had asked for additional resources for the Russian Federation investigation last week, saying that he was unaware of such a request and that the investigation had “adequate resources”.

US President Donald Trump talks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The deputy attorney general now finds himself in the crosshairs only two weeks after being confirmed by the Senate. The New York Times Editorial Board penned an open letter to Rosenstein criticizing his memo to Trump, and many Senate Democrats have said they now regret voting for him.